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February 20, 2013

Play Station 4 officially revealed by Sony. It's a major advance in console technology

The next round of the so called console wars began today with Sony’s official announcement of the Play Station 4 gaming console. The PS3 is a great step forward in gaming technology, and of course in this day and age consoles are no longer just for games and the PS4 is a great example of that.

"The demands for a new platform were clear," said Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House as he introduced the PlayStation 4.

House said the PS4 must "surpass gamers' wildest expectations" and that it will encourage "new business models" for developers.

In some kind of Dark Knight Rises riff he also said "We must give gamers the experiences they not only expect, but deserve.

"Our vision of the future is consumer-centric and developer-inspired ... expect powerful opportunities to connect, play, and stay informed,"

This all sounds lovely and grand but what are the details? What’s the guts of the device?

Lead system architect Mark Cerny says the PS4 features a supercharged PC architecture with a x86 architecture CPU, an enhancer PC GPU, and 8GB of GDDR5 system memory as well as a local hard drive. This all means that the PS4 can make nearly two teraflops of computations a second.

The console will ship with an Xbox Kinect-style stereo camera peripheral device and a controller with a ‘Move’ sensor built in.

The new controller, the DualShock 4, boasts improved analogue control sticks, an enhanced rumble feature, and touchpad.

I hear there's some sharing button?

A new share button will allow PS players to distribute screenshots and video clips, while gameplay can be livestreamed and open for real-time comments and interaction from other players – surely a sign that social media will be a fully integrated experience within the console. Indeed, the platform will allow users to watch games being played by others, and "reach out" to play on a friend's system. Console wwners will also be able to use their smartphones and other personal devices to browse videos and use companion apps.

Big Brother is watching you and your gaming needs.

The Playstation 4 aims to be able to know its user and anticipate their needs: “Long-term vision is to reduce download times to zero... if we know enough about you we know what game you'll purchase next and download it in the background." Which is very Google like.. and perhaps a waste of hard drive space…

and... Destiny?

Bungie's Destiny will be released on the PS3 and PS4 and will included content exclusive to that console.